


The First Day of a New Life

by rivendellrose



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2240049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>September's life changes abruptly in the time between season four and season five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Day of a New Life

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for season five!

It did not entirely surprise September that the others discovered he was helping Walter. December had already been suspicious of him, and his reports had clearly encouraged others to keep close watch on him when they arrived. He expected to be censured for his disobedience, perhaps even returned to the time of his origin, where he would be left to experience the last years of Earth's habitability and die with it.

He miscalculated.

"Your mind has been changed by the primitive humans," Windmark informed him as two of his lieutenants shackled September to a chair. "Your... sympathies, have led you astray. You have disrupted the timeline. Disobeyed direct orders. Assisted the primitives in their attempts to avoid the inevitable. "He tilted his square head, narrowed eyes that were entirely without emotion. "You prefer them to us. To your own kind."

September considered this statement. He thought of the boy and his own inexplicable, inexpressible need to protect him and hide him away so he would not be destroyed. The strange sense he had that the flaws the scientists noted in his progeny were not flaws at all, though he could clearly see that they were unintended deviations and that the boy was abnormal. He thought of the frantic desperation he had seen in Walter Bishop's attempts to save his own son's life. Of the pride and empathy of Olivia Dunham, and the gentle good humor of Peter Bishop, and all the other people he had seen and watched in this younger world. "Yes," he admitted. "I prefer them. They are flawed, but they try to overcome their errors. They struggle and pursue." 

He was a little surprised with the statement himself, but Windmark did not appear to think this at all unexpected. He did not smile, but he looked nonetheless like a man whose suspicions have been proved correct and was quietly satisfied with that outcome. "As you prefer them, then, and have already acted for their part instead of our own, it will be better for you to be one of them. Perhaps we shall yet learn something from your fall in this way. I have often been curious to see whether it was possible to revert one of our kind to one of theirs, and what the consequences to that individual would be. You have provided me with a fascinating opportunity for experimentation."

Before September could move, Windmark injected a hypodermic into his neck. The drug coursed quickly through September's veins and immobilized him as he watched Windmark and his assistants turn away and begin preparations for surgery. He was conscious long enough to feel agony beyond his previous experience the removal of the implant in the back of his neck reawakened parts of his nervous system that had long lain deadened and unaware, and then he lapsed into darkness.

When he awoke, he felt... strange. It was enough, almost, to say that he felt at all - that alone was something unknown in September's experience, at least at the strength that sensations now bore down on him. They overwhelmed him so that it was hard to draw them out one at a time or consider them at all. His entire body was on fire. All his life he had experienced pain only as a vague discomfort, nothing that could not be ignored and disregarded in pursuit of greater and more important matters. Now he discovered pain as something that occupied his body and mind and utterly defied his efforts to dismiss it. He vomited on the shining white floor of the lab, and curled his whole body in on itself as he struggled against the sensations that overwhelmed him. Hands, cold and clad in latex gloves, lifted him from the floor and set him on his feet, but his head swam and he could not seem to find his balance. A strange visual phenomenon, something like fireworks on his retinas, overlaid his vision as his legs seemed no longer able to support him, and he fell again. Even through the pain and disorientation he was uncomfortably aware of the sour and acrid smell and warm damp of his own vomit seeping into the shoulder of his shirt.

This time, the gloved hands of the attendants did not bother to set him back on his feet. They simply hauled him out of the lab without a word, his feet dragging useless beneath him, and dropped him outside. He wondered woozily how Windmark's concept of dignity could tolerate the idea of one of their people, even a disgraced one, laid on the ground half dressed and stinking of his own bodily effluvia. In the early days of the invasion he had expressed nothing but disdain for the wretched and unwanted humans they found in similar condition, and had hardly seemed willing to lower himself to nod the culling teams in their direction. Lost in the confusion of his pain, it took a great deal of time before September realized that he was no longer any more kin to Windmark's mind than those poor creatures.

He laid for a long while on the cement, watching the tide of humanity pass him by unnoticed just as it had always done. His invisibility was not so comforting now. Perhaps, he thought, Windmark intended him simply to die here as the unwashed and unwanted humans had done. But time passed - actually passed, moved by in one slow, implacable stream as he had never experienced it doing before - and he did not die. And then, at last, the shape of a human leaned into his view, looking down at him.

It was not a well-dressed shape, not one of the humans who wore neat pressed suits and the tattoo of the trusted loyalists. But it looked at him with something between pity and sympathy, and bent low to speak to him.

"Hey, buddy. The baldies are gonna get pissed if you lay here all day. Try drinking in your own place, or at least in a bar."

September tried to swallow and found his mouth both foul and dry. He coughed, tried again, and managed to wet his mouth enough to speak. "I was not drinking." 

"Sure you weren't. Whatever it was, do it in your own place. Do have someplace you can go?"

Did he? September considered this question and thought of only one place whose inhabitants might be willing to shelter him. "Harvard."

"A grad student? Of course." The man, who wore the bright orange jacket of a construction worker, rolled his eyes. "You guys are always doing the stupidest shit. Okay, buddy, let's get you on your feet..."

This time, after he was set upright, September's legs stayed steady beneath him. He wobbled uncertainly as the man released him, but managed to catch himself. 

"Okay, pal. The school's that way." The man pointed. "I gotta get back to work. Think you can make it back to your dorm room or whatever without passing out in the bushes?"

September nodded, regretted that decision, and said quietly, "Yes."

"Good. Try to remember next time that you're not a big guy, you can't drink like the rugby players or whatever. Don't know how the hell you afforded enough to get that wasted, anyway, but I guess Harvard's still Harvard no matter what," the man muttered as he walked away.

It took him more than two hours to walk to Harvard campus, stopping frequently to rest. Once there he found his way to the lab where Walter did his work. It was dark, but he could hear music within... and for the first time in his life, he could truly hear it. It was not the mere series of tones and rhythms he had always experienced in the past. Or rather it was, but they... spoke to him, somehow, now. The sounds that had once been simply the plucking of a metal wire amplified in a wooden chamber, or the rubbing of waxed horsehair on another kind of wire reverberating within a smaller wooden chamber, now sounded strange, familiar, but fraught with unexpected meaning. He leaned against the door for a long moment, listening as hard as he could and trying to understand what had changed within him to make the music sound so very different.

Exhausted, disoriented, and confused, he let his eyes fall closed and leaned against the door. He might have stood there for minutes, until Walter suddenly opened the door inward. September stumbled and would have fallen to the ground once again if Walter hadn't caught him. 

Time moved for a while without his awareness of it, a phenomenon with which he was becoming uncomfortably familiar, and when his mind surfaced to consciousness again he found himself laid out on the rough old hide-a-bed that Walter kept in what had been his office when he was an active Harvard professor and now served as his living quarters on campus. A brown and orange plaid blanket lay over him, and in the distance he could still hear music playing on the old record player, and Walter singing along. The sound somehow made him feel less tired, less alone. He sat up and looked around.

Walter left whatever it was he had been doing and came back into the office. He carried a mug in one hand, and a plate in the other.

"Good, you're awake." He set the mug carefully on the desk beside the hide-a-bed, then cast a surprisingly insightful look over his unexpected guest. "Now tell me - am I right about who I believe you are?"

September considered this. "That... depends. Who is it that you believe I am?"

Walter smiled. "That settles that. You're him. The Observer. Aren't you?" His face faltered. "Or did I take rather too many of those pills this morning? I was sure they would have worn off by now..."

"I can assure you that I am not a hallucination." 

"Good." Walter sat down on the side of the bed and watched him curiously. "So how is it that you came to look as you do, then? How are you..." He reached out toward September, then seemed to remember himself and pulled back, turning the gesture to pick up the mug he had set down and offering it to September. He seemed at a loss for words.

"Changed?" September suggested as he accepted the mug. He sniffed it delicately, and, shocked by the strength of the smell, set it immediately back on the desk. It must have been coffee - he had seen humans drink the dark liquid often enough to recognize it - but he had somehow never noticed the scent of it before. It was... dark, like its color, and somewhat... He shook his head. He could not find the words. "Perhaps it would be best for you to first tell me how I am changed. Then I can tell you how that came to be."

Walter regarded him oddly, then stood up and retrieved what looked like a shaving mirror from one of the filing cabinets on the far side of the room and brought it to September. The face that looked back at him from the mirror was not the one he knew. Not exactly, at least. The basic features were the same - the lips, nose, and jaw he knew, and the eyes, though they seemed lighter now than he remembered. Perhaps that was a symptom of lessened visual contrast to his skin, which was now darker, more a warm beige than the almost eggshell white that his skin had been in the past. His head still was without hair, but already he could see the first strange glimmer of very short hairs growing from his scalp, and on his cheeks as well. He reached up and ran his fingers curiously over them. They... prickled. Just slightly, but enough that he was aware. He lowered his hand, mystified, and looked again into the mirror, and realized that he was wearing no shirt. He touched the bare skin above his collarbone. Strange marks showed red there. Probably, he realized, they were from whatever instruments Windmark and his associates had used in the procedure.

"The shirt is in the lab laundry," Walter told him. "I don't know if it'll survive."

A strange term to apply to a garment of cotton and linen, but September understood what Walter meant. The damage to the shirt from his ordeal might prove too great to allow its salvage. "That is acceptable. I am not who I once was. Windmark and the others will not want me to dress like them. Nor should I, if I wish to blend in with your people."

"Well, you'll need something before you leave. I'll see if I can find some of Peter's clothes. They'll fit you better than mine, I think, although the length might be a problem…" Walter considered this for a moment, then waved the thought off as curiosity reasserted itself as his dominant emotion. "So what happened to you, then? Some kind of laboratory accident? A mistake?"

"A punishment." 

Walter frowned. "That's a bit insulting."

Something happened in the muscles of September's cheeks. They... lifted. "They meant it that way. I did not."

Walter smiled in return - that was what it was, a smile. September had smiled. Walter's weathered cheeks breaking into layers of lines and bared teeth that meant peace rather than menace. September faltered, then felt the sensation again as recognition of the fact doubled the sensation that Walter's expression gave him. Pleasure, perhaps. He had heard of that, and seen it in the people he observed. The experience was unlike that of watching it, but apparently seeing it in another could now wake it in his own body as he had seen it do so in others.

He told Walter everything that had happened - how Windmark had summoned him and told him all that he had discovered of September's activities assisting the humans against his own people's efforts, and how he had decided the appropriate punishment for September's transgressions and meted it out. How he had lain unconscious, and been helped to his feet by the construction worker, and found his way to Harvard. Discomfort muddled his insides as he reached that last fact. "I... did not know where else I could go," he admitted. "I have no other acquaintance among your people."

"Your people, too, now, it seems," Walter corrected with a glimmering little smile. The desire for more knowledge brimmed in his bright eyes. "Would you allow me...?"

"You wish to conduct tests? Of course." That, at least, was a familiar enough thought for September. And with Walter, he felt sure he could rely on the resulting experiments being significantly less unpleasant than those Windmark had carried out. 

"Wonderful! Eat first, though."

September looked at the clock on the green wall of the office. "It is not time for a meal."

"Maybe not, but you probably need one. You've been through a lot in one day. Do you feel hungry?"

September considered this. "I don't know. I have never felt hunger before."

"Never felt...?" Walter stared, then shook his head as if dismissing something entirely from his consideration. "All right. We'll deal with that when we've handled the more important matter. Let's get some food into you. How do you feel about red vines?"

"They sound improbable."

"And delicious," Walter assured him. "Here. Eat the cookies first, they'll give you a nice carbohydrate base and some sugars to work from, and then we'll add the red vines into the mix and see if we can't get you functioning again. And drink the coffee! Caffeine's probably a fine idea for you at the moment. And if it isn't, then we'll know for later."

"Is it not unwise to have too much sugar at a time?" September suggested. 

"What, because of a sugar crash later? The trick there, my dear friend, is to keep eating the sugar."

The cookies were flat, irregular circles of a somewhat blobby nature, untidy in a way that September immediately disapproved of, and riddled with dark little chunks of what he identified as chocolate. Humans, he was aware, prized the substance. He had tasted it once in the past and found it messy, first chalky and then waxy, and generally unappealing. Under Walter's encouraging gaze he took a cautious bite and was surprised to discover that the taste was no longer bland, but rather complex. Sweetness and bitterness and other tastes he had no words for blended together and melded in his mouth. The carbohydrate portion crumbled, the chocolate melted on his tongue, and he was left wondering how he had never noticed any of this before.

"My sense of taste... seems to be very different now," he finally explained to Walter when he had swallowed the bite.

"You'll have to relearn what foods you like, I imagine." Walter grinned. "I'm jealous. To think of the wonder of experiencing every food as new as an infant, but with the mind of an adult and a scientist... I wonder if there's a way to chemically block off the sense memories to replicate that experience? Belly and I did something similar with vision experiments under the influence of LSD back in the seventies, and..." He trailed off, noticing September staring at him. "But I suppose that can wait until we know more about what's happened to you. Finish eating, and then we'll look into matters."

The eating took a while. By the time he had consumed the last of the three cookies, September experienced a dryness in his mouth and throat that was frustrating and significantly disconcerting. When he mentioned it, Walter suggested he drink the coffee. September regarded the dark liquid with significant suspicion. 

"I would rather not," he told Walter at last. 

"Hmm. Too complicated a taste, I suppose. Well, fine. We'll try you on that at a later date. What about some milk? Some good, healthy milk is perfect after cookies." Walter bustled off to the lab's refrigerator and returned with a tall glass of the white liquid. September did not feel particularly more at ease with this one than the last, but he accepted it and took a careful sip. It was cold, and the suspended lipids seemed to help in washing away the residual sweetness and drying agents of the cookies. It would suffice. He drank the whole glass, and handed it back to Walter. "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." Walter beamed. "Now, if you're ready...?"

September stood, the orange blanket still draped over his bare shoulders to keep off the chill. "Of course." 

Walter's tests lasted late into the night, and when he had finally accumulated all the data he needed, he found a t-shirt and fleece overshirt of Peter's to loan to September until clothes of his own could be acquired. The shirts both hung large and a bit long on September's slighter frame, but they eased the chill and shivering that had seeped into his body while Walter did his work, and the warmth felt more important and positive than he had ever experienced before. Levels of cold that he would not have regarded as worthy of note in the past now struck him as uncomfortable. There was much to learn about this new form his body had taken on.

Walter insisted that September come home with him, and dismissed his concerns about this causing difficulty with Peter and Olivia, should they come over for an unexpected social call. "They're away in New York right now," he explained. "They heard of a shelter for orphaned or lost children, and they're hoping to find Henrietta there."

"Henrietta?"

"Their daughter. My granddaughter." Walter looked down at the ring of keys in his hand, seeming to forget that he had intended to use them to open the door in front of them. "She's been missing since the day of the invasion. We've tried everything to find her, but..." His face broke into a sudden grimace, and his eyes squeezed shut. 

Something twisted in September's abdomen, accompanied by a feeling as if his throat was trying to close. He tentatively identified the feeling as guilt. "I am... sorry for the difficulty my people have caused you. And that my sorrow is inadequate to your loss."

"It's not your fault." Walter patted him vaguely on the shoulder, and September was surprised to discover that he felt both a little better and also a little worse for the contact. It was deeply confusing. They stood on the porch another several moments while Walter cried, and then he remembered his keys and let them into the house, locking the door carefully behind them. 

The house itself was more cluttered and less tidy than September remembered it, with dishes piled in the sink and assorted items strewn wherever Walter had last used them, it seemed. Piles of papers and books covered the sofa, the hearth, and the kitchen table, a cardigan and an abandoned button-up shirt hung across the back of a kitchen chair, and September stepped carefully around boxes and stray shoes and half-emptied coffee cups as he followed Walter in. 

The guest bedroom upstairs smelled different from the rest of the house, as if it had stood uninhabited for a long time, but the blankets Walter hauled out of the linen closet and spread over the bare sheets were clean, and the blinds on the window closed tightly, something that September found surprisingly important. He sat down on the foot of the bed, unlaced his shoes, tucked them beneath the bed, and then moved to lay down. 

"You're not going to sleep in all that, are you?"

September froze, half-lowered to the mattress. "Should I not?" He straightened, and took off the gray fleece Walter had loaned him, then checked the human's reaction. Still disapproving. 

"Wait here." Walter disappeared down the hall and returned with a pair of shorts in a soft flannel material. They were patterned with blue and grey plaid. "You shouldn't sleep in the clothes you wear during the day," he said, holding the shorts out to September. "These are a pair of Peter's pyjama bottoms. If you insist on wearing anything to bed, at least wear something intended for it. I don't know why you would at all, though. Just like Peter," he muttered. "He never could accept the benefits of sleeping nude, either. No matter how many times I showed him research on the matter."

September considered this. He did not want to offend Walter, but if Peter, too, had refused to sleep without clothing, then he regarded the choice as both safe and technically appropriate to make. "Thank you," he said, accepting the shorts. 

"We'll have to find you some clothes of your own tomorrow," Walter told him. "Peter will want his clothes back when he comes home."

That, September thought, sounded rather like Walter was trying to convince himself of the statement's truth. He was probably not certain that Peter and Olivia would really be returning any time soon, perhaps at all. Once it would have been a relatively simple matter for September to follow all the potential threads of time and see what the likelihood was of Peter and Olivia returning, even to view the statistical chance of their finding and retrieving Henrietta safe and sound. He could have put Walter's mind at ease at least to that extent. Now... his mind could only follow threads of logic and potential, see possible endings. He could guess at likelihood and statistical probability, but he could be no more certain than Walter himself, and that would be no comfort to the man. "Thank you," he repeated quietly. "I hope I am not a trouble to you."

Walter snorted and shook his head. "I sleep badly, with the house so empty. It's good to have someone else here."

He went away, then. September heard him close the other bedroom door, so he did the same, and then changed into the shorts Walter had given him. He left the t-shirt on, and folded the trousers and fleece neatly before placing them in the otherwise empty drawers of an old wooden dresser. He laid down on top of the blankets, folded his hands, and stared at the ceiling a short while before discovering the he felt cold and crawling under the covers. The cotton sheets were surprisingly chilly against his skin, and for a while he shivered despite the heavy blankets above him. Then his own body heat seemed to catch up to the blankets, warming them at last well enough that he could drift off into an unsettled sleep.

When he awoke, no light yet shone through the blinds. The street outside was dark, and he could hear the sound of rain on the roof and windowpane. September pulled his socks back on and padded out into the darkened hall. He had intended only to walk downstairs and see if he could find something to read or blank paper to write on, but a light was still on in the downstairs of the house. Approaching it, he discovered Walter, still awake and wearing only a dark red bathrobe, his gray curls mussed and erratic. He was cooking something that made a low popping sound.

"Doctor Bishop?"

Walter glanced back. "Ah. I didn't wake you, did I, my boy?"

That was something he called Peter, September remembered. Was that significant at this moment? Was Walter mistaking him for his son? "No. You did not wake me."

"So you couldn't sleep either, hmm? Well, good. I had been going to keep the volume down low, but now I won't have to." Walter beckoned him closer, and September, after a moment's pause, complied. "When I can't sleep," Walter confided, "I cook. Used to drive Peter crazy. It steadies my mind, though."

"Is that why there are so many dishes in the sink?" September asked.

"Hmm? Oh. No, that's because I'm a terrible housekeeper. Abysmal. That drove Peter crazy, too. I think he moved in with Olivia just as much to get away from my mess as to spend more private time with his wife," the old man announced with a grin. "But it did mean we couldn't have our movie nights anymore. I don't know if he misses them, but... I do."

The cover of the large pan on the stove suddenly lifted on the growth of puffy white kernels. Clearly these were the source of the popping sound that September had heard earlier. He regarded them with some suspicion, then looked at the other saucepan that Walter was stirring with his left hand as he shook the larger one in a smooth circular motion with his right. The saucepan contained an oily substance with clouds of yellow in it, and gave off a scent that seemed somehow warm in more than its temperature. 

"What is it that you are making?"

"Popcorn." Walter smiled.

"And the other?"

"What other?"

"The other pan." September pointed to the saucepan with the oily yellow liquid.

"Butter. For the popcorn."

"Ah. I... see." He did not, entirely. But it seemed like the sort of thing that Walter expected him to understand.

"You've never had popcorn, have you?"

September considered, recalling the various foods he had eaten either to sustain himself or as camoflauge while moving among humans. "No. I have not."

"Well, you're missing out on a vital human experience. And now that you are human rather than just observing us, you might as well join in."

September watched as Walter poured the popcorn into a large bowl, and then took the pan of liquid butter off the heating element and poured it carefully over the popcorn as he shook the bowl with his other hand, presumably to equalize the distribution of the butter. September watched the process with mild interest, particularly as Walter set aside the empty butter pan and picked up a shaker of salt and repeated the shaking-and-pouring process over again.

"There!" Walter announced when he had finished. "Now, what shall we watch?" 

September tilted his head to one side, confused. "Is it required to watch something while eating this food?"

"Well, it's not precisely required, but I would certainly say that it's traditional. Popcorn is food for movie theaters, and it's associated with watching movies even when you make it at home. Besides, watching a movie is very good for insomnia. If it doesn't help you fall back to sleep, it at least passes the time more quickly than laying in bed staring at the ceiling."

"Ah. Yes." September felt an uncomfortable sensation in his abdomen again - nervousness, perhaps. He did not like the idea that time, now, was a thing that he must pass, and find ways to pass. Previous to this time had been more of a utility to him than a constant - a tool, rather than something that moved regardless of his will and interest. He must now learn the many ways in which he had watched humans interact with time. They wasted it, endured its steady march, or grasped at it, clinging to seconds that sped by too quickly for their appreciation. It seemed that so too, now, would he. Time would no longer be his to manipulate. Rather, he would have to learn to endure its constant movement forward with no recourse to slow or stop it in its course, or to look ahead when he wished to and understand all possible outcomes before he must experience them in the real world. Time would not leap forward at his command, and he would not have the luxury of making it wait so that he might do as he wished.

"Do you not like movies?" 

Movies. September shook himself out of his worrying reflection on the nature of the universe. "I have very little experience with them," he informed Walter. 

"It's high time to begin your education, then."

Walter fussed for a time with a collection of small, flat boxes of various sizes and shapes before choosing one that seemed to please him and feeding it into a media outlet, then sitting down on the couch. After a few moments of standing nearby as Walter looked back and forth between the screen and himself in what the human probably regarded as subtle glances, September intuited that his companion wished him to sit, as well, and joined Walter on the couch. 

The video played back in shades of black and white, and seemed to be a rather trite and simplistic story of a group of singing and dancing actors in the early part of the twentieth century. 

"Here, eat." Walter held out the bowl of popcorn.

Cautiously, September retrieved a few pieces of the puffed white snack in his fingers. They felt light, almost as though they had no substance, and smelled warm and dry as he brought them to his mouth. When he deposited the fluffy little pieces on his tongue he was stunned at first by the flavors of the salt and butter over the milder taste of the puffed corn, and by the texture - light and airy, but melting on his tongue and revealing something hard and crisp in the middle. He chewed carefully, swallowed, and took another small handful to experience the feeling again. If he chewed sooner it felt different - the sensation of breaking the crisp pieces between his teeth was surprisingly pleasant.

"Well?"

From context, September guessed that Walter wanted to know what he thought of the popcorn. "It is... enjoyable? But it seems to lack nutritional content."

"Yes, well. Sometimes eating is more about social intercourse or comfort than it is about taking in nutrients. You'll learn that, after you've figured out more of what you like and what you don't, I expect."

September considered this. So far, he was aware of liking chocolate cookies and popcorn, and disliking coffee, or at least feeling very wary of it. Milk and red vines he felt neutral toward. Comparing this short list to the vast array of food and drink he had watched humans ingest over the years of his study, he realized that he had a great deal of experimentation ahead of him. 

As the movie continued, another thought came to September's awareness. The humans in the story were greatly concerned with matters of status and visibility. It mattered to them that the young actress and singer who performed the music for the film within the movie receive appropriate recognition for her contribution. Likewise, the actress who could not sing was very concerned that others not find out that it was not her voice being recorded for distribution. The question of whose name was associated with the work was a subject of great interest to everyone. Names, in general, were a subject of concern for humans - it was always among the first things that humans asked each other, when they were introduced in matters that were not of a service economy, and even then he had frequently noted that the wait staff at restaurants and diners for some reason assumed that he and his fellows might wish to know their names, even though they were not needed for the purpose of summoning them or providing them with payment. 

"It will be necessary that I have a name," September remarked once the video had ended. "Humans will wish to know what I am called, and my current designation does not accord with naming practices in this time period and place."

"Do you have a designation, then?" Walter asked curiously. "To be honest, I've always referred to you simply as 'The Observer.' I wasn't sure what else to call you."

September's lips twitched in a faint smile. "I am called September. Or at least I was."

"Ah. Well, that is... quite a nice name. But I think you may be right that it will stand out somewhat. Particularly since you present as male."

September tipped his head to one side, considering this. "Would it stand out less if I appeared to be female?"

"I expect so. Modern society is a good deal less precise about the rules regarding names that are considered appropriate for women, I'm afraid, than they are names held to be appropriate for men. A person might choose all sorts of different names for a baby girl, but boys generally have to keep to a relatively small pool of names that are understood to be masculine. It's all rather silly, I suppose, but that's the way it works. I remember when Peter was born my wife was very firm about the sorts of things that a boy could be called as opposed to all the many things we might have called a daughter. She especially hated the idea of 'Abelard.'"

"I see. However, since my name is a remnant of my life as what you call an Observer, it would no longer be appropriate to keep it in any event. And even if it were, I would need a second name. Therefore, I should choose something different."

Walter waited, giving every sign of polite curiosity as to this assertion. But September found his mind frustratingly blank. He was familiar with a great many human names, in a general sense - he knew the names of humans he had idly watched, humans who had been particular subjects of interest for himself and his fellows, and humans whom he had merely happened upon in passing. To take any of these names would seem to be inappropriate, as they belonged already to a human of this time. He attempted to mix up some of the names, but this tactic felt no more satisfying - rather most of the combinations seemed uncomfortable in some way that he could not quite express, and he rather felt that with their attention to such details, the humans around him might be disturbed rather than comforted if he presented himself as, for instance, Peter Broyles or Walter Dunham. 

Walter seemed to understand his crisis. "Perhaps if you were to choose a name from the movie?" he suggested in a gentle tone.

September looked at the box of the VHS tape. "Gene Kelley?"

"I think that might attract some attention. He's still quite famous, even after his death."

"Ah." September turned his attention to the next name down the list. "What about Donald O'Connor?"

"Donald O'Connor," Walter repeated, eyeing him thoughtfully. "Yes. I believe that could work. You might change the spelling slightly. O'Conner with an 'e' instead of an 'o.'"

"Will that make a difference?"

"It might. At any rate it will prevent anyone from automatically thinking you were named after the actor. He made quite a few movies, up to just a few years ago."

"Then should I avoid this name as well? Would it not... attract attention, as you said the other would?"

"No." Walter smiled. "It's a common enough name. No, I think Donald O'Conner will work quite nicely for you."


End file.
